Celibates Part 46

She had said that very morning, as she painted her face before the gla.s.s, 'I am an old woman, or nearly. How many more years? Three at most, then I shall be like Lady Castlerich.' And the five minutes she had spent looking into an undyed and unpainted old age had frightened her. She had hated the world she had wors.h.i.+pped so long. She had hated all things, and wished herself out of sight of all things. That she who had been so young, so beautiful, so delightful to men, should become old, ugly, and undesirable. That she should one day be like Lady Castlerich! That such things should happen to others were well enough; that they should happen to her seemed an unspeakable and revolting cruelty. And it was at that moment that her husband had sent for her. He had told her she must give up her lover for her daughter's sake. Should she do this? Could she do this? She did not know. But this she did know, that the present was not the time to speak to her of it. Give him up, hand him over to that horrid Mrs. Priestly, who was trying all she could to get him. Whatever else might be, that should not be.... She loved her daughter, and would do her duty by her daughter, but they must not ask too much of her.... She had lost her temper, she had said things that she regretted saying; but what matter, what did the poor Major matter--a poor, mad thing like him?

These were the thoughts that filled Mrs. Lahens' mind while Lilian sang. The purity of Lilian's voice was bitterness to Mrs. Lahens, and it was bitterness to remember that St. Clare loved that face. For no one now loved her face except perhaps Chad, and they wanted her to give him up. It was the knowledge that the time of her youth was at an end that forced Mrs. Lahens to say that Lilian sang out of tune, and to revive an old scandal concerning her.

'Surely, mother,' said Agnes, 'all you say did not happen to the young girl who has just left the room?'

III.

Through the house in Grosvenor Street men were always coming and going. Quite a number of men seemed to have acquired the right of taking their meals there. When Lord Chadwick absented himself he explained his enforced absence from the table; and Agnes noticed that while Lord Chadwick addressed her mother openly as Olive, Mr. Moulton did so surrept.i.tiously, in a whisper, or when none but their intimate friends were present. They rarely a.s.sembled less than six or seven to lunch; after lunch they went to the drawing-room, and the eternal discussion on the relations of the s.e.xes was only interrupted by the piano. St. Clare played better than Lord Chadwick, but Mrs. Lahens preferred Lord Chadwick to accompany her. He followed her voice, always making the most of it. At five o'clock the ladies had tea, very often the men chose brandies and sodas; cigarettes were permitted, and in these influences all the scandals of the fair ran glibly from the tongue, and surprising were the imaginations of Mrs. Lahens'

scandalous brain.

The reserve that Agnes' innocence imposed on the wit of the various narratives, and on the philosophy of the comments often became painfully irksome, and on noticing Harding's embarra.s.sments Mrs.

Lahens would suggest that Agnes went to her room. Agnes gladly availed herself of the permission, and without the slightest admission to herself that she hated the drawing-room. Such admission would be to impugn her mother's conduct, and Agnes was far too good a little girl to do that. She preferred to remember that she liked her own room: her mother let her have a fire there all day; it was a very comfortable room and she was never lonely when she was alone. She had her books, and there were the dear sisters she had left, to think about. Besides, she would meet the men again at dinner, so it would be just as well to save her little store of conversation. She did not want to appear more foolish and ignorant than she could help.

After dinner, Mrs. Lahens and Lilian Dare went off somewhere in a hansom. They often went to the theatre. Sometimes Agnes went with them. She had been twice to the theatre. She had been thrilled by a melodrama and pleased by an operetta. But the rest of the party, mother, Mr. Moulton, Lilian, and Mr. St. Clare had declared that both pieces were very bad--very dull.

But they were all anxious to see a comedy about which every one was talking; they were certain that they would be amused by it; and there was some discussion whether Agnes should be taken. Agnes instantly withdrew from the discussion. She did not care to go, she felt she was not wanted, and she even suspected that she would not like the play.

So it was just as well that she was not going. But after dinner it was decided that she was to go. Lord Chadwick was with them; Agnes had never seen him more attentive to her mother, and Mr. St. Clare was absorbed in Lilian. She had, Agnes heard her mother say, succeeded in making him so jealous that he had asked her to marry him. But Mrs.

Lahens did not think that Lilian would marry him; nowadays girls in society did not often marry their lovers; they knew that the qualities that charm in a lover are out of place in a husband.

Agnes sat in the back of the box and wondered why Lilian's refusal to marry St. Clare had made no difference in his affection, nor in hers; they seemed as intimate as ever, and Agnes could hear them planning a _rendezvous_. Lilian was going south, but St. Clare was to meet her in Paris. Agnes wondered--a thought she did not like crossed her mind; she put it instantly aside and bent her attention on the play.

There was a great deal in it that she did not understand, or that she only understood vaguely. She did seem to wish to understand it. But the others listened greedily, as well they might, for the conversation on the stage was like the conversation in the Grosvenor Street drawing-room, as like as if a phonograph was repeating it.

'I should not make such a fuss if I heard that my dear Major had---'

Agnes did not hear the rest of the sentence.

'If I were to revenge myself on you, Lilian.'

'You had better not.... Besides, there is nothing to revenge.'

'Isn't there,' said St. Clare, and his face grew suddenly grave.

'You are my first and you'll be my last,' Agnes heard her whisper, and she saw St. Clare look at her incredulously.

'You don't believe me. Well, I don't care what you believe,' and she turned her back on him and listened to the play.

And when the play was done Agnes went home in a hansom, sitting between her mother and Lord Chadwick. St. Clare and Lilian followed in another hansom, and the two hansoms drew up together in Grosvenor Street. After the theatre there was always supper, and Agnes knew that they would sit talking till one or two in the morning. She was not hungry; she was tired; she asked if she might go to her room; they were all glad to excuse her; and she ran up to her room and closed the door. She threw off her opera cloak hastily, and then stood looking into the fire. Suddenly her brain filled with thoughts which she could not repress, and involuntary sensation crowded upon her. There was the vivid sensation of her mother's painted face; there was the sensation of her father--his strange clothes, his shy, pathetic face.... She preferred to think of her father, and she asked herself why he did not go to the theatre with them; why he did not appear oftener at meals.

His food was generally taken to him. Where did he live? Up that narrow flight of stairs? She had seen him run up those stairs in strange haste, as if he didn't wish to be seen, like a servant--an under servant whose presence in the front of the house is discrepant.

Suddenly Agnes felt that she was very unhappy, and she unlaced her bodice quickly. The action of unlacing distracted her thoughts. She would not go to bed yet. She took a chair, and sat down in front of the fire, thinking. The convent appeared to her clear and distinct in all its quiet life of happy devotion and innocent recreation. She remembered the pleasure she used to take in the work of the sacristy, in laying out the vestments for the priest, for Father White; and in the games at ball in the garden with those dear nuns. She remembered them all; and, seen through the tender atmosphere of sorrow, they seemed dearer than ever they had done before. How happy she had been with them; she did not expect ever to be so happy again. The world was so lonely, so indifferent. She was very unhappy.... And her life seemed so fragile that the least touch would break it. Her tears flowed as from a crystal, and they did not cease until the silence in the street allowed her to hear her father's quick steps pacing it. She could hear his steps coming from Grosvenor Square. Her poor father!

Every night it was the same ceaseless pacing to and fro. She had heard her mother say that he sometimes walked till three in the morning. She had watched him a night or two ago out of her window. It was freezing hard, and he had on only an old grey suit of clothes b.u.t.toned tightly, and a comforter round his neck. Her father's subordination in the house was one of the mysteries which confronted Agnes. She did not understand, but she knew by instinct that her father was not happy, and her unhappiness went out to his. She pitied him, she longed to make him happier. Others might think him strange, but she understood him. Their talk was strange to her, not his. Last Sunday he had taken her to ma.s.s, and they had walked in the park afterwards, and he had been happy until they met Mr. Moulton. A little later they had met her mother and Lord Chadwick. Mr. St. Clare and Miss Lilian Dare had come to lunch. She had seen no more of her father that day. She had hoped that Father White would come and see her, but he had not come; she had sat in her room alone, and after dinner her mother had scolded her because she did not talk to Lord Chiselhurst, an old man who had talked to her in a loud rasping voice. He was overpowering; her strength had given way, she had fainted, and she had been carried out of the room. When she opened her eyes St. Clare was standing by her.... She was glad it was he and not Lord Chiselhurst who had carried her out.

But they would not let her back to the convent before six months. She had been a week at home, and it had seemed a century. The time would never pa.s.s. She did not think she would be able to endure it for six months. Her father did not like her to go back. Was it not her duty to remain by him? He was as unhappy as she, and she was very unhappy.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she cried until her tears were interrupted by the sound of her father's latchkey.

She listened to his footsteps as he came upstairs. When he arrived on her landing, instead of going to the end of the pa.s.sage, and up the staircase, he stopped; it seemed as if he were hesitating about something. Agnes wondered, and hoped he was coming to see her. A moment after he knocked.

'Is that you, father?'

'Yes.'

'Then wait a moment.'

She slipped her arms into her dressing-gown and opened the door to him.

'It is nice and snug here,' he said, coming towards the fire--' nice and snug. But bitterly cold in the street; I could not keep warm, yet I walked at the rate of five miles an hour. I ran round Grosvenor Square, but the moment I stopped running I began to get cold again. I couldn't keep up the circulation anyhow.'

'Then sit down and warm yourself, father.'

'No thank you, I like standing up best. I'll just stop a minute. I hope I am not in the way; tell me if I am.'

'In the way, father; what do you mean?'

'Nothing, dear, I only thought. Well, I'll just get the cold out of my bones before I go up to my room. It is cold up there, I can tell you.'

The girl's keen, pa.s.sionate eyes looking out of a grief-worn face, and a figure so thin that she looked tall, contrasted with the little fat man dressed in the yellow tweed suit b.u.t.toned across his rounding stomach. To see them together by the fire in the bedroom made a strange and moving picture. For the figures seemed united by mysterious a.n.a.logies and the fragments of bread and cheese which the Major held in his old blued fingers were significant.

'I could hear them singing in the drawing-room,' he said, 'when I came in, so I stepped into the dining-room. One feels a bit hungry after walking. How did you like the play, dear?'

'Pretty well, father,' she answered, and she strove to check the tears which rose to her eyes.

'You've been grieving, Agnes. What have you been grieving for--for your convent; tell me, dear? I can't bear to see you unhappy.'

'No, father; don't think of me.'

'Not think of you, Agnes! Of whom should I think, then? Tell me all, everything. If you're not happy here you shall go back. I won't see you unhappy. It is my fault; only I thought that you had better come home and see the world first. I _had_ thought that we might have altered things here, just for your sake.'

'But you, father, you're not happy here; you would be still more unhappy if I went back to the convent. That is true, isn't it?'

'Yes, that is true, dear; but you must not think about me. There's no use thinking about me; I'm not worth thinking about.'

'Don't say that, father, you mustn't speak like that;' and unable to control her feelings any longer, Agnes threw herself into her father's arms. And she did not speak until she perceived that her father was weeping with her.

'What are you weeping for, father?'

'For you, dear, because you're not happy.'

'There are other reasons,' she said, looking inquiringly and tenderly.

'No, dear, there's nothing else now in the world for me to grieve for.

You must go back to the convent if you're not happy.'

'But you, father?'